Abstracts and presentations are embargoed for release at date and time of presentation or time of AHA/ASA news event. Failure to honor embargo policies (http://newsroom.heart.org/newsmedia/embargo-policy) will result in the abstract being withdrawn and barred from presentation.

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the US and is a leading cause of adult disability. It was reported that the first few months post stroke is critical in neural plasticity and motor recovery. Presently, effective treatment options for ankle impairment and mobility are limited, especially for in-bed acute stroke rehabilitation. In this study, wearable robotic training involving passive stretching and active movement training was investigated to determine its efficacy in improving stroke outcome.

Methods: Eleven patients with acute stroke participated. This was completed in a clinical in-patient setting (45 min/session, 3~5х/week, total 18 session). Participants were aged 53.7±17.4 (mean±SD); robotic treatment was given averaged 40.5 days of stroke onset. They continued receiving standard inpatient physical therapy during the study. One way repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare clinical and biomechanical outcome measures across the repeated measures.

Conclusions: The use of robotic device demonstrated improvements in selected outcome measures in hospital settings, and it was efficiently administer in the clinic. The results suggest that impaired lower limbs of acute stroke can respond to controlled stretching and movement training in terms of muscle biomechanical properties and improve lower extremity functional activities in acute rehabilitation.The limitation of this study was its small sample size and lack of a control group.

Author Disclosures: K. Chen: None. Y. Ren: Employment; Significant; Hold equity Position in Rehabtek LLC, which received NIH and NSF fundings in developing the robotic device used in this study. R.L. Harvey: Research Grant; Significant; Nexstim Corporation. E.J. Roth: None. L. Zhang: Employment; Significant; Hold equity Position in Rehabtek LLC, which received NIH and NSF fundings in developing the robotic device used in this study..